Máire's one-woman show

The Bad Arm – Confessions of a Dodgy Irish Dancer, written & performed by Máire Clerkin and directed by Dan O'Connor (Impro Theatre) first broke out as a fringe festival favourite in Hollywood, Chicago and New York, followed by critical acclaim at international festivals in Jacksonville, Greensboro, Dublin, London and Edinburgh. It has also been performed in Vancouver, Atlanta, San Diego, Sacramento, Santa Cruz, and Minneapolis.

Raw rhythms. Tall tales. Belly-aching comedy.
It's the antidote to Riverdance.
She's English in Ireland, Irish in England, and a pink-haired punk in 1970s London. This ugly-duckling-never-quite-swan recounts her experiences like only a failed London-Irish dancer can. Máire Clerkin jumps in and out of her dancing shoes, clicking and kicking her way across the decades. An irreverent, poignant solo show about the other side of Irish Dance.
Link to FB page

Article

As an Irish dance teacher, my schizoid lifestyle continued. Racy weekends in raucous pubs and dubious nightclubs were tempered during the week, by teaching the reel and jig to children in the parish hall. - Irish Times

Reviews

"Rollicking percussive jigs from a scowling Londoner, in this uproarious antidote to Riverdance. Maire Clerkin kicks arse in laugh-till-you-cry poignant comedy - hotfoot from Hollywood, Chicago and Dublin."
Critic's pick, Backstage

Irish dancing, hardly a subject that normally strikes you with excitement and laughter right? Well with Máire Clerkin at the helm that's is exactly what you get. - Anthony Orme, The Open Door - Click For Full Review

Excellent entertainment exposing the cut-throat world of Irish dancing with LOL humour & pathos, Val McDermid

Raw rhythms. Tall tales. Arse-clenching comedy.
It's the antidote to Riverdance. She's English in Ireland, Irish in England, and a pink-haired punk in 1970s London. A rich seam of comic failure. This ugly-duckling-never-quite-swan recounts her experiences like only a convent-educated Irish catholic girl can. Máire Clerkin jumps in and out of Irish dancing shoes, clicking and kicking her way across the decades.

A virtuoso performance ????
The Public Reviews, Edinburgh Fringe

A roguishly comedic monologue of memories that extends beyond the personal to a more general evocation of the times,
The Herald Scotland

Plenty of laughs,
Time Out, Chicago

Flawless, magnetic stage presence,
LA Theatre Review

It's the deep dish from the real deal…. very funny,
NY Irish Arts

The requisite of keeping both arms slammed into one's body emerges as a metaphoric constriction in a world that Clerkin captures so meticulously,
LA Weekly

Critic's Pick,
Back Stage

Best of Fest,
Hollywood Fringe

PRESS: Angela +1-310-801-5520 / clerkindagger@gmail.com
Twitter: @mauraclerkin | @CamdenFringe | @TristanBates
Facebook: www.facebook.com/DodgyIrishDancer

More Reviews...

A strikingly-mobile evocation of her personal life and times….virtuoso performance.
R G Balgray: The Public Reviews

A roguishly comedic monologue of memories that nonetheless extends beyond the personal to a more general evocation of the times. Born London-Irish, Clerkin pithily conveys the trials of being caught between two cultures – at home in neither and suspect in both.
Mary Brennan: The Herald

Clerkin's a Riverdance-standard hoofer with a flaw, and her fancy footwork and gliding, gazelle-like movement are a joy.
Michael Coveney: Whats On Stage

Full of fun… she is also a fine comic actor.
Kelly Apter: The Scotsman

She's a charming storyteller and lively comic actor.
Elaine Liner: Broadway Baby

Excellent entertainment from @mauraclerkin in The Bad Arm @edfringe Exposing the cut-throat world of Irish dancing wi LOL humour and pathos.
Val McDermid: Twitter

Reviews

When Clerkin puts on her dancing shoes, her feet twinkle as merrily as the humour she stamps on that racketty past. - The Herald Scotland :::Read full article online

Nearly three decades on since last performing at the Edinburgh Fringe with The Hairy Marys Irish dance troupe, Máire Clerkin returns to the Festival with plenty of confessions to share. - TW | Edinburgh :::Read full article online

Help The Bad Arm Get to Scotland - Irish Dancing & Culture Magazine ::: Read full article online

Bad arm, bitter pill: Ex-Irish dancer tells all - She finds redemption though retrospection. Those artful jigs. Those brilliantly executed hornpipes. Those tapping toes. Those long, high-flying legs. Sweet, hardworking, skilled little Maire Clerkin would be the very picture of Irish dancing's graceful ideal…if it weren't for that one protruding, silhouette-destroying arm. That bad, bad arm. Poor thing. She'll never grow up to hoof it in "Riverdance" — let alone win the approval of her gifted, stern, dance teacher/mother. - Scott Stiffler, Downtown Express, NY ::: Read full review online

The Bad Arm of a Sure Foot: comic Irish Dance Theatre! "Growing up an Irish dancer, your chief emotion is jealousy," Clerkin informs us, and proceeds to demonstrate it with her tale of sidestepping into dance, despite a right arm that kept wanting to fly from her side. She was jealous of other girls who got more praise from her mum, who ran the dance school (Mum overcompensated). She was jealous of the little girls from poor families to whom she had to lend her costume (in one funny sequence, she can't run onstage to get her trophy, because she's in her underwear). - Gwen Orel, New York Irish Arts, NY ::: Read full review online

On a recent PBS-TV Riverdance special, I learned that the dancers keep their arms stiff at their sides and move only their legs to keep the dancing prim and asexual. Unfortunately for Maire Clerkin, daughter of a popular Irish dance teacher, she had this misbehaving right arm that insisted on creeping up into a right angle. Maire (pronounced "Maura," though sometimes it sounds like "Moira") shares her coming-of-age story in her solo show The Bad Arm: Confessions of a Dodgy Irish Dancer, written by Clerkin, directed by Dan O'Connor. Clerkin offers her story as "the anti-Riverdance." - Melanie N. Lee, nytheatre.com, NY ::: Read full review online

As a “Plastic Paddy” in ’70s London, neither shore of the Irish Sea welcomed Máire Clerkin as one of its own, and an errant right elbow frequently jabbed its way between her and approval from her folk-dance teacher mother, despite genuine interest in carrying on the family tradition. Clerkin jigs among various UK accents and precise characterizations with ease, drawing plenty of laughs at the expense of her younger self, but we know the bumbling child she describes will become the warm, talented personality before us, so it all goes down easy. - Zachary Whittenburg, Time Out, Chicago ::: Read full review online

"The focal point of Clerkin's coming of age saga is her right elbow… a "bad arm" that her mother says is responsible for her placing poorly in competitions...keeping both arms slammed into one's body emerges as a metaphoric constriction in a world that Clerkin captures so meticulously." Stephen Leigh Morris, LA Weekly ::: Read full review online

"At times poignant and at times hysterically funny." Brooke Alberts, Folkworks Magazine ::: Read full review online

"Clerkin is a gifted writer-actor." Dany Margolies, Backstage ::: Read full review online

"Maire Clerkin's comic memoir of her misspent youth is one of the unexpected highlights of the Hollywood Fringe." Jordan Young, LA Arts Examiner

"Her wit and self-deprecating humor is both hysterical and heartfelt….Directed by Dan O'Connor, the simple staging with the mixture of dancing, projected photos and music wonderfully aids Clerkin's flawless and magnetic stage presence. Funny, unique and great Irish dancing - definitely a must see." Ashley Steed, LA Theatre Review

The Bad Arm - Confessions of a Dodgy Irish Dancer is now available for touring! To book a performance, enquire about technical specifications, view a DVD recording or discuss tour dates, please contact maire@maireclerkin.com

Máire is providing an educational supplement to her performance work. Transforming Irish Folk Tales into Dance Theatre and Secret Diaries: Exposing the Dancer Inside are ideal workshop subjects for students of theatre, dance and Celtic Studies.

This show was sponsored by Heather Woodbury's Fomenting Arts Unlimited, and was originally funded by the Durfee Foundation.